Silence
by WolfWarriorQueen
Summary: Cassandra Harker, a deaf girl living in a world without electricity, will have to test how well she can adapt to the powerless world when she joins Charlie, Aaron, and Maggie on their quest to save the love of her life from the Militia. Follows episodes from Cassandra's POV [Danny/OC]
1. Prologue

I own nothing except my own OC

Austin, TX 2012

_Cassandra, turn off the TV. Daddy's on a call_, Mallory Harker told her daughter in sign language as she picked up some dirty clothes off the armrest of the couch.

Three-year-old Cassandra Harker obeyed and turned off the TV, watching the face of Scooby-Doo disappear as the screen turned dark. She adjusted her hearing aid and hopped off the large green couch before quietly moving into the kitchen where her father was.

Roy Harker turned off the stove and took the skillet off as he talked into his Bluetooth frantically. She was barely able to make it all out:

"No, sir…but I…wait, if you'll just hear me out…I have no idea how that could have happened, sir…wait, no, you can't...fired? No, no, sir, no, please, wait, I…hello? Hello?"

The phone clicked and Cassandra knew they were disconnected. Roy suddenly hurled the phone at the wall and screamed in frustration and anger. Cassandra turned down her hearing aid until she could no longer hear her father's angry outburst. However, it didn't enable her ability to see. She saw everything that happened next: her father ripping out drawers and flinging them across the room, then kicking and throwing the contents until Mallory came into the picture and tried to stop her husband.

Even at the age of three, Cassandra had learned to block out all the bad things in life by simply turning down her hearing aid. She was too young to understand her father's sudden rages, or why her mother was always so stressed, and it made her cry seeing them like this.

Cassandra began to cry, the tears coming down rapidly and falling onto her long light brown hair. It wasn't the fights that scared her, or the angry, hateful expressions her parents wore most of the time, but the quiet.

It was the quiet.

The quiet scared her. No, it terrified her. Seeing and not hearing terrified her. Seeing such hate and not being able to hear or listen or give into sounds scared her. She was born deaf and had never heard her own voice before. Actually, she had never spoken a word in her life. She learned sign language at an early age and used that as her way of communicating.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the kitchen lights began to flicker on and off. The lamp in the den and the lights upstairs all flashed too, and then…nothing.

Nothing. The world became suddenly still and dark just then. All the lights turned off. She couldn't see or hear now. And terror raced back to her and latched onto her heart. She screamed just then, but she couldn't hear it. No matter how loud she screamed, or how hard she cried, she couldn't hear it.

But little did Cassandra Harker know, something happened in the world just then. Something amazing. Something terrifying. Something extraordinary.

But she would never be able to hear it.

And that's what truly frightened her.

How'd I do for chapter 1? Next chapter takes place 15 years later at the start of the show and things start to get interesting


	2. Chapter 1

15 years later

Sylvania Estates, Wisconsin

"So, what does everybody think?" Aaron Pitman asked the group of kids who circled around him, watching him with heavy lidded eyes and bored faces. From a distance, Cassandra read the lips of the scrawny black girl muttering the s-word under her breath and she couldn't help but to chuckle a bit.

"I know that learning isn't as cool as bow hunting or whatever, but still, this should bother you. Physics went insane. The world went insane overnight, and nobody knows why."

Cassandra read Aaron's lips as he spoke to the young ones and couldn't help but wonder that herself. Why did the power go off? It enabled her ability, her _one chance_ at being able to hear, and as if fate were mocking her, it all went out. She couldn't wrap her head around it. She dug into her dusty jeans pocket and pulled out her hearing aid, which would never work ever again. She kept it, though. Hoping that one day the power would come back on and she'd be able to hear again.

Only, Aaron and Ben made it perfectly clear that there was no chance of it ever turning on again, which crushed Cassandra's hopes and dreams of ever feeling normal again.

She put the hearing aid back in her pocket and pulled her long hair into a ponytail, which swept down her back and rested between her shoulder blades. The sun had stained it with streaks of gold and honey and lit up her mahogany colored eyes whenever the light hit them. Her once pale skin was now lightly tanned from being outdoors all the time and had sprouted freckles over her shoulders and the bridge of her nose. So much had changed in fifteen years, including Cassandra, who was now close to eighteen.

She went back to tending to the plants and flowers that sprouted from the hood of an old rusted car when Ben Matheson stepped out of his house with a cup of what looked like coffee, something that was hard to find nowadays.

She gave him a small wave and he waved back as he strolled over to Aaron, who had a flask.

Cassandra smiled when Aaron told him about the raccoon fiasco that occurred the previous night, but then knit her eyebrows together when Ben asked where Danny and Charlie were. Cassandra had been wondering that herself for a few hours. Usually it was Charlie who went off by herself, but hearing of Danny's absence was news to her. Danny usually stayed near town.

She looked off to the forest and wondered where they could have gone. And most importantly, if they were all right.

She continued to tend to the plants when the same scrawny black girl who was with Aaron came up to her and stared at her hard in the face. Cassandra turned around and smiled at the girl, giving her a little wave. The girl's expression didn't change.

"My daddy told me you were deaf," the girl's lips read, and Cassandra's jaw tightened, the smile frozen onto her lips.

She nodded, not saying a word.

"Are you dumb?" the girl asked, narrowing her eyes.

Cassandra shook her head again.

"Then why don't you ever talk? Are you mute, too?"

The girl was getting on Cassandra's nerves now, but she knew that the girl was only a child and that she shouldn't get mad over her questions. Lots of people asked her stuff like that and it never bothered her, so she didn't know why it was bothering her now.

"Can you even speak?"

Cassandra shook her head.

"C'mon, I bet you could. Or are you just plain stupid? Say 'dog'."

Cassandra had spoken very few words in her eighteen years of life, and it had been hard for her seeing that she couldn't hear her own voice. Nobody seemed to understand her whenever she said anything, so she chose not to say anything at all.

"_Dog,"_ Cassandra said aloud. She couldn't hear it, but she knew she said it.

The girl laughed. "You're real stupid, aren't you? Cause you can't even say 'dog' right. My daddy was right about you."

Cassandra turned her back and started angrily pulling weeds from her little garden, reminding herself to keep calm. She felt angry, humiliated, and upset all at the same time.

Pretty soon, she felt the girl's small feet carry her off to someplace else and felt the thuds of her shoes faint as they scurried off someplace else. She was pretty certain that the girl called her a bad name behind her back, but she wouldn't be able to hear it. Not at all.

News of Danny and Charlie's sudden return spread through the town quickly, with word of Danny being sick, and Cassandra booked it over to the Matheson place as soon as she could.

The darkened house was lit up with hundreds of candles and the first thing Cassandra saw once she entered the house was Danny laying on the couch and drinking some sort of mixture.

Maggie acknowledged her presence first by welcoming her with a warm greeting. "Hello there, Cassandra."

Cassandra went over to the chalk board the Matheson's kept for her during her visits and picked up the chalk. She wrote _is he okay? _in big letters.

"Yes, he's fine, dear. Had a bit of an asthma attack, but he's better now," Maggie said.

Cassandra's eyes moved over to Danny, who was looking at her with those beautiful blue eyes of his and smiling, which caused her to smile back.

"Hey, Cassie," his lips read, and Cassandra's heart melted. She mouthed the words _"Are you alright?" _and he flashed her the A-OK sign and widened his smile.

Cassandra liked Danny a lot. Like…_like, liked _him. She and the Matheson family had been close ever since her parents left to find a new town a few years ago. Roy and Mallory Harker left Texas three weeks after the blackout and hiked all the way to Wisconsin to search for Roy's sisters, some of the only living family the Harkers had left. They first met Aaron while he was on his own and traveled with him until they found the Matheson family and their town.

Four years ago, Roy and Mallory bid their daughter goodbye as they continued their search for Roy's three sisters, who were said to have lived in New York. Four years and they had yet to return to the town and their only daughter. Cassandra was heartbroken over this and tried not to let it show, but she herself wasn't convinced she was doing a very good job at it.

Behind her, Charlie, Ben, and Maggie were engaged in an argument over the events that occurred earlier. Cassandra didn't watch, nor did she take any interest. She was too busy watching Danny, who was busy watching her with his beautiful blue eyes of his.

Charlie then stormed out of the room and Cassandra felt the vibrations of the door slamming behind her. Ben got up, but Maggie assured him to let her go so that she could blow off some steam. Ben shook his head, defeated, and calmly strolled outside.

Maggie looked back at Cassandra and Danny and sighed. "Holler if you need anything," her lips read and she followed Ben outside.

Danny looked at Cassandra and scooted over on the couch so that she could sit beside him, which she gradually did.

"So how've you been, Cassie?" he asked, and Cassandra gave him a thumbs-up. _What Happened?_ She signed back.

Danny gave her a confused look, and then pieced it together. "Oh, what happened? Uh, well, Charlie and I went into the woods, found an RV, went inside, and being the idiot that I am, I opened up a cabinet and a big thing of old flour and dust fell on me."

_I'm sorry_, she signed, and Danny took her hand in his. "It's okay," he said quietly, and Cassandra smiled.

Their attention was divided when a dog started barking outside and a horse whined, causing Danny to look out the window, between the blinds. Cassandra didn't hear anything, but looked outside with him.

Men on horses were flooding into the town, dragging along a wagon that had the militia mark on it. Danny sat up straighter and let go of Cassandra's hand to open up the blinds so he could get a better view of the outside. A man hopped off his horse and approached Ben as the townspeople looked on in fear and confusion. Aaron and Maggie watched from a safe distance and Charlie was nowhere to be found.

Danny bolted up and made his way over to the closet, where he rummaged through it until he came out with a crossbow, making Cassandra's eyes widen in fear.

She ran over to Danny and grabbed onto his arm as he prepared to load it. He looked at her, his blue eyes now turned cold, and she shook her head frantically.

"They're after my dad, Cassie," Danny said calmly. "I'm not letting them take him from me, too."

He gently shook her off and quickly moved to the door and went outside while Cassandra, horrified, went after him.

_What is he doing?_ She thought worriedly. _He's never used one of those before, and it's him against a dozen men. He's going to get hurt_.

Cassandra reached the door just as Danny pointed the crossbow at the man who was talking to Ben. "You can't take him," his lips read.

Cassandra saw Ben try and tell his son to stop and she was sure the militia man said something, but she was too focused on Danny to care about anything else.

_Don't be a hero, Danny. Put down your gun, _Cassandra thought, standing frozen on the front steps of the Matheson house, watching him stand up against the entire militia. She gasped when a militia man pointed his gun at Danny, and when her neighbor Caleb pointed his gun at the militia soldier.

Danny repeatedly told the militia soldier to put down his weapon, but more and more militia men raised their weapons and so did some other townspeople. She saw their expressions and watched their lips as they spelled out words of anger and for a second, her heart stopped, because she knew what was going to happen next.

Silence.

It all happened so fast. She saw the gun go off, saw it hit its target, and saw Ben fall to the ground, holding his chest where the bullet penetrated him. She saw it all, but didn't hear a thing. Nothing but silence.

Danny fired and so did Caleb, hitting the same soldier, and all hell broke loose.

Militia soldiers and townspeople fired their guns and weapons and blood began to flow. Cassandra screamed, but no sound was heard. Not just by her, but by everyone else, who were too busy fighting for their lives as she watched in pure horror.

The lead soldier, the man who was talking to Ben, flipped out his gun and started shooting random townspeople with no hesitation or emotion.

"Enough," his lips pulled back into a snarl as he said the word.

Danny was grabbed by militia soldiers and dragged away from Maggie and Ben, who was now laying on the ground, bleeding.

_No. No!_ Cassandra then ran from the house and towards Danny while Aaron tried to restrain Maggie, who was also going for Danny. She ran past Ben and Maggie and pushed through townspeople and soldiers until she could see him being tossed into the wagon and tied to it. Strong hands grabbing her and shoving her back suddenly stopped her. She looked up to see the leader glowering down at her and he pointed a gun to her chest.

He spoke fast and with no facial expression, which scared Cassandra out of her wits. "Do yourself a favor and get out of here before I pump your sorry guts full of lead, and do not test me because we both know I will." He then smiled, but his eyes were cold and heartless. "Thank you for your cooperation."

He let her go and hopped onto his horse, pulling the reins and leading his men and the wagon out of town.

Cassandra tried to run after them, but Aaron and Maggie held her back as she screamed and cried and fought, frantically trying to get away and get to Danny.

Suddenly, the words screaming in her mind suddenly spewed out her mouth and formed into an actual scream, an actual word, an actual sound.

"DANNY!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, crying and sobbing and begging for Maggie and Aaron to let her go.

She then saw him look at her one last time, just before the wagon rolled out of sight and out of the town. His beautiful blue eyes were dull. Hollow. Broken. He was crying, his eyes were red, and the look on his face broke Cassandra's heart in two.

"_I'm sorry," _he mouthed, and then he was gone, leaving nothing but silence in its wake.


End file.
